Eloquent, passionate, persuasive, and downright blistering. That’s how I would describe Gov. Rick Perry’s (R-TX) latest anti-Trump speech, which was delivered at the Opportunity and Freedom Pac only yesterday. Among other things, Perry argues that his old friend Donald Trump “espouses nativism, not conservatism” — and therefore has built his candidacy on an edifice of “mean-spirited vitriol,” directed at both minorities and veterans. Perry finds this totally unacceptable, calling him a "cancer on conservatism." At the same time, Perry also attacked the fabulously wealthy businessman personally: “He breathes the free air thousands of heroes died protecting,” Perry said. “And he couldn’t have endured for five minutes what John McCain endured for five and a half years.” Ouch. Furthermore, Perry accuses Trump of taking a page out of the Democratic handbook, dividing Americans “along bloodlines” to win an office he is eminently — and totally — unqualified for. And beyond that, his self-conceit and hubris is grossly off-putting. A taste:
But most telling to me is not Mr. Trump’s bombast, his refusal to show any remorse for his comments about Senator McCain, but his admission that there is not a single time in his life that he sought the forgiveness of God.A man too arrogant, too self-absorbed, to seek God’s forgiveness is precisely the type of leader John Adams prayed would never occupy the White House.
Adams, Lincoln, FDR – they all went before God on bended knee. They all held this office of great power with humility.
A humility, Perry argues, that Trump utterly and spectacularly lacks. Read the whole speech here. It is excellent.